Skin Contact

Chapter 2: Darlin'

At first it is a searching and chaste kiss, both of them unpractised in one another. Close-mouthed, no more than a press of chapped skin against skin, but it is warm and gentle. Daryl had spent a few alcohol-infused nights with women, buzzed and unable to remember much when the grey light of morning rolled around but a few fragments of detached memory. And Beth had had boyfriends before, Jimmy at Hershel’s farm and Zach at the prison.

But this is different on both parts.

Because it is Daryl Dixon—with angel wings stitched onto his back and a crossbow held at his side, the noblest redneck in Georgia.

And it is Beth Greene—a girl who had lost everyone she knew but her sister, her world gone in a heartbeat, and somehow, alone and weak and bleeding, she had managed to survive.

Daryl surges forward, Beth bending backwards as he traps her in his arms, his tongue in her mouth. Daryl Dixon’s tongue is in her mouth. For a moment Beth is stunned, and Daryl takes her hesitation for uncertainty and begins to pull back. But, as always, Beth catches him. She wraps her arms around his neck, responding to his demanding kiss in kind—wet and sloppy and glorious. Their breathing quickens with desire, the sensation of heat flooding their senses. The weight of their bodies is comforting, and Beth and Daryl cannot deny how right they feel slotted together.

Suddenly, Beth giggles against Daryl’s open mouth. He breaks the kiss, the expression on his face scared and almost vulnerable, causing the noise to die in her throat.

“What is it?” he breathes.

She stares at him, so un-Daryl with swollen lips and mussed dark hair, panting in something other than adrenaline. At her shocked, wordless reaction Beth can already feel him extracting from her grip, convincing himself that she doesn’t want this, doesn’t want him.

“No, no, no,” she says, rushing to rectify the situation. Beth grabs onto him, fisting his vest and shirt, and she holds. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what?” he demands, withdrawing into the hard, cynical shell of the man he once was.

“It’s this.” Beth makes sure to smile, putting everything she has into it—all the love and hope and general goodness. “It’s you.” She leans close to him, tipping her head up so all Daryl has to do is edge forward and down to capture her lips. “It’s us.”

At the way he looks down his nose at her she’s almost worried Daryl’ll reject her and turn away. He’s trying to gauge the truth in her words, in her actions, mulling it over in his head. Beth grins up at him, looking past that long, shaggy hair that hangs over his forehead and—

“Blue eyes,” she whispers, marvelling at the discovery.

“What?” His tone is sharp, but he’s still wrapped around her.

“You have blue eyes.” Beth shortens the distance between them to get a better look. She can hardly believe she never noticed it before, maybe because he seemed to be squinting half the damn time, hidden behind a curtain of hair and scowling far too often for anyone to get close. His eyes are a dark blue, a tired grey-like colour that doesn’t merit anything particularly spectacular, but the fact remained that it belongs to Daryl Dixon. And he is beautiful.